The Time for Sleep is Now
by mrspetervincent
Summary: Rachel shot at it, but it was too late. The walker fell down with a large chunk of Quinn's arm in it's teeth. Zombie Apocalypse AU; title from the song "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie.


**A/N**: Not really any warnings for this one, besides depression and angst and WAH.

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Rachel shot at it — the bullet entered it's skull and went out the back, rendering it totally and completely dead — but it was too late. The walker, or "Zombie" as Noah and Finn liked to call them, fell down with a large chunk of Quinn's arm in it's teeth. She fell down soon after it.

"Quinn!" Rachel yelled as her fellow Glee club members continued to shoot and whack at other walking undeads, kneeling next to her chest and pointedly staring into her eyes instead of the large wound. The blonde's eyes were wide open, terror clear in all of her features. Quinn shut her jaw tight, trying to suppress the scream that would rip out of her the minute her lips separated. She knew Rachel wouldn't be able to handle that.

"Quinn, oh my God, Quinn, help! Someone!" Tears flowed freely from the brunette's eyes as she looked around for anyone that could aid her in her futile attempt at saving Quinn, who was clutching her forearm or lack thereof, staring with pain at Rachel as she accepted the inevitable that Rachel hadn't; she was dead.

Rachel looked back down at her dying girlfriend, and finally forced herself to look at Quinn's arms. Quinn shook her head helplessly and grasped at it, trying to cover the wound with her arm. She still hadn't opened her mouth. The shorter girl braced herself, placing a hand over Quinn's and prying it off of her arm. She gasped as her eyes ran over it, the exposed bone and muscle and blood, so much blood. "I-It's going to be okay, Quinn, it's all g-going to be o-okay." Rachel stuttered, convincing herself more than her girlfriend on the ground.

Quinn shook her head again, looking apologetically at Rachel. It was her fault she had been bitten. She wasn't paying attention, she was facing the opposite direction of the flood of undead instead of facing them dead-on, something Puck had taught them early. Puck was surprisingly at ease while shooting at zombies.

"Q-Quinn, what's wrong with your jaw? Can you open your mouth?" She wondered if inability to move your jaw was something that happened after you've been…she didn't allow herself to think the word "infected," too ugly a word for someone as beautiful as Quinn.

Quinn nodded almost reluctantly.

"Talk to me, Quinn, please."

Quinn looked up into Rachel's pleading eyes and sighed through her nose, putting the hand attached to her unbitten arm on the dark-haired girl's to brace her for it, and Rachel looked down at it in confusion for only a split second before quickly looking back at Quinn's face contorted with pain. Her eyes shut tight as her mouth opened and a blood-curdling scream immediately broke free, ripping through and forcing her chest up and her head down into the ground beneath it.

"Shit." Rachel recognized the voice above her as Finn's as Quinn fell back to the ground, panting heavily as she released her grip on Rachel's arm. It was then that Rachel realized that she was no longer alone. She would not look away, but based on the murmured voices she heard, only Noah, Finn and San were nearby.

"With that big of a wave of zombies, there's bound to be some casualties." Puck said nonchalantly, and Rachel smirked as she heard the distinct sounds of Santana calling him an asshole in Spanish and elbowing him in the ribs. "What? It's true!"

"Dude, show some respect." Finn whispered over Rachel and Quinn, obviously on the other side of her.

Rachel let more tears fall past the bottom lid of her eyes as she watched Quinn beneath her, writhing and wincing and moaning in pain. Despite that, though, the blonde managed to reach up and wipe a tear from her cheek, curling her hand lightly around Rachel's jaw.

"You're gonna be okay, Quinn. I promise. I swear. I swear you will be okay," she rambled desperately. "Someone get me a bandage, quickly, come on."

No one around her moved, and so Rachel decided to take action herself. She pulled her shirt over her head, shivering as the cold hit her sweat-covered skin and ripped a long strip out of the bottom, wrapping it around Quinn's arm just above the rip at her elbow.

"R-Rach, it's u-useless."

Rachel shook her head, tying the makeshift tourniquet tightly around her thin, pale arm. "No. There has to be a way to save you."

She flinched when Santana placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed comforting circles. "B, c'mon, you're just getting your hopes up," she whispered sympathetically. Santana knew what it was like to lose a loved one to the disease; she had lost Brittany early on. She kept her cat, Lord Tubbington.

Rachel's hands froze and she lay them on the ground on either side of Quinn's arm, her eyes sliding shut as hot, salty tears squeezed out.

"She's right, Rach," Quinn spoke, her voice shaky as she tried to keep herself from crying out in pain every few seconds. "I'm d-"

"No, Quinn, no, don't say it, it's not true, you're alive, you're right there, you're breathing, you're alive," she rambled, eyes still closed.

"Not for long." Although Quinn's voice was wavering and barely there, Quinn wouldn't let herself cry as she watched Rachel. She needed to be strong for her.

"We should probably go," Finn said, grabbing Puck and nodding at Santana in the direction of their little camp in the mountains. Rachel finally tore her eyes away from Quinn to watch them walk away, footfalls slowly fading as they lowered themselves into folding chairs around a small, smokeless fire.

Rachel sat in silence as Quinn's condition, as Rachel was calling it in her head, slowly worsened.

"You should leave too, Rachel, honey," Quinn whispered, hand on Rachel's knee. "Sometimes it takes days, but sometimes it only takes an hour."

"No. No, Quinn, I'm not leaving you. I'll become a zombie too if I have to."

Quinn shook her head. "I won't let you do that, Rachel. You have to live."

"No." Quinn raised her eyebrows at the sudden force with which Rachel spoke. "We are living in an apocalypse. There already isn't much to live for. Without you, there is literally nothing left."

Quinn understood exactly what she was saying. If the roles were switched, Quinn would be reacting the same way.

"Okay." She sighed."Okay, at least, promise me one thing."

Rachel nodded through a gasp of breath.

"Don't let me bite you."

Rachel laughed humorlessly, looking down at her horrible mess of a "tourniquet" and untying it, blood still flowing profusely. They sat in silence.

"I'm almost gone, Rach," Quinn whispered, shakily raising her hand and placing it over Rachel's. Rachel gripped her hand tight.

"You're not gone. You might be dead, but you'll never be gone."

Quinn nodded, but Rachel could tell it took effort. Her breath started coming in quick pants as she fought to breathe them in, staring into Rachel's eyes with panic in her green ones. Rachel held her hand tight and watched as her girlfriend slowly and painfully died, bringing her knuckles up to her lips and pressing light kisses as she let out a low moan that was her last exhale. Her eyelids drooped, but did not close, and her lips fell open slightly. She was officially dead.

The only noises in the camp were the soft crackle of fire and the wind blowing through the trees, even Rachel's sobs silent now.

"You do realize what you have to do, right, Rachel?" Puck asked across the 10 feet of their little easily movable if necessary "home". Rachel nodded and Puck ceased to talk, settling back in the chair. She gently pushed Quinn's eyelids closed, and revelled in how if she ignored the blood, she could pretend she was sleeping.

The night passed and Rachel didn't sleep a wink, watching Quinn and the gun laying next to her and holding her hand as she watched for any sign of movement, any sign of waking up. Nothing happened until about 10 in the morning, when the others began to wake up and make breakfast. It wasn't much at first, just the twitch of her fingers in Rachel's hand, but she called to the others.

"She's waking up," Rachel said without emotion, without tears, without anything. It was just a fact and she knew exactly what she had to do.

When Rachel saw Quinn's eyes slowly open, Rachel smiled sadly. They were no longer the beautiful emerald she had fell in love with, but a cold, bluish-white.

She ran a hand along Quinn's jaw, smiling softly when she felt sharp teeth dig into her index finger, biting off the tip of the digit. The pain didn't even set in; she laughed at the wound, holding it up in front of her face as she heard the sound of Quinn swallowing it.

"I didn't keep your promise, Quinn." The feeling of the infection hadn't set in yet, but Rachel knew it would soon. She pulled Quinn up and held her, feeling her jaw open and close near her ear but not biting anything. Rachel held the gun and pressed it up against her temple, in a line that would shoot both of them, pulling the trigger before anyone could protest.

When they buried the bodies of those lost, they made sure Rachel and Quinn were laying beside each other.


End file.
